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Mary Schapiro, in one of her last acts as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, delayed one of the centerpiece measures of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, according to previously unpublished documents.

The contentious proposal calls for lifting the so-called general solicitation ban on companies advertising unregistered securities, investments that are subject to less rigorous regulatory controls than public offerings. Ending the ban would allow the securities to be advertised widely, a move potentially affecting hundreds of billions of dollars of private offerings by companies.

However, internal SEC emails, released to a congressional panel, appear to show that a last-minute intervention by Barbara Roper - director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer lobbying organisation - might have helped persuade Schapiro to change her mind and delay the measure, in part because of concerns about her personal legacy.

In an email to Schapiro's chief of staff on August 7, Roper voiced "strong objections" to the idea of issuing an "interim final rule" which would have immediately ended the ban, with no consultation period. The email was forwarded to Schapiro, who promptly sent it on to her inner circle of advisers and Democratic commissioner Elisse Walter, saying "they are making me very worried".

Within an hour of getting the consumer group's email, Schapiro appeared to change her mind about the rule. She sent Meredith Cross, the head of the SEC division with responsibility for writing the rule, a message headed: "Please don't forward."